Landmark legal challenge against police facial recognition begins | Computer Weekly

"A judicial review against the Metropolitan Police's use of live facial recognition (LFR) will argue the force is unlawfully deploying the technology across London, without effective safeguards or constraints in place to protect people's human rights from invasive biometric surveillance."

""It serves to protect against people being selected for a watchlist for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory or without sufficient basis. As to the 'where' requirement, the concern is not with the individuals on the watchlist, but the thousands of innocent people who will have their biometric data taken while going about lawful quotidian activities.""

"They added that, as with the "who", similarly constraining officers' discretion as to "where" LFR can be used inhibits officers from selecting locations for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory, or otherwise have an insufficient basis. "That is a safeguard against individual officers selecting areas arbitrarily or improperly targeting areas where people of certain races or religions disproportionately live or consistently targeting deprived communities in London," they wrote, adding that if there are insufficient constraints on "where" LFR can be used, it will be impossible for people to travel across London without"

Shaun Thompson, who was wrongfully identified by the Metropolitan Police's live facial recognition system and subjected to a prolonged stop, and privacy group Big Brother Watch have brought a judicial review challenging the Met's deployment of LFR across London. The claim asserts the technology is being used unlawfully without meaningful safeguards to limit the collection and use of biometric data. The Met's policy on who can be placed on watchlists and where LFR can be deployed is described as overly permissive, granting excessive officer discretion. That discretion risks arbitrary, discriminatory targeting of individuals and communities and threatens thousands of innocent people's privacy while they carry out lawful activities.

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